Sweet Dreams

About a year ago, I lost a pack of Chibi-Usa stationary. I thought maybe I had put it up somewhere when packing up for the Hurricane Rita evacuation, but I never could find it anywhere, not even when I put my room back together.

Fast-forward to last night. I was cleaning my room for a certain special someone's visit next weekend -- yes, Samuraiter and I are finally going to meet face-to-face ^_^ -- when I finally found that packet of stationary. Do you know where it was all this time? In a filing tray on my bedroom desk.

If there ever was a "D'oh!" moment, this is it.

Granted, I never really use the desk in there, and it was a bit of a mess before I straightened things up, but, really, that should have been the first place I looked when I first realized the stationary was missing.

D'oh!

Remember last week when I was talking about how someone had used Mom's bank card number to buy a cell phone?

Well, the bank gave us back the stolen money, only to take it away again after Mom already used it to pay off some bills.

GRRRR!

Apparently, they have to do an investigation because somehow this guy (or girl) also used the PIN. My mom doesn't even know the PIN to that card! She forgot it a long time ago, so she only uses it as a charge card. What did this person do? Hack into the bank computer? A complete lucky guess?

Now all my cash (over $300) is gone because Mom had to borrow it to try to take care of the hot checks, and she had to take some money from Laura's old checking account (which was joint since Laura was underage when she opened it) as well. She says she'll pay us back in a couple of weeks when she gets the money from the Christmas savings thing they do at her job, but the way things are going, I don't know if she'll be able to. I hope she can pay us back by Christmas, even if it's just some of it. This was the first year I was actually going to be able to buy half-way decent Christmas presents for my family with my own money. I even had the gifts picked out: a Folgers gift set for Dad, a Sims expansion pack for Laura, and the Back to the Future DVD boxset for Mom (or maybe chipping in with Laura for the third season of Charmed).

This sucks. It's already bad enough that we're behind on bills because of Mom and Dad missing work during the Rita evacuation, and now this. Mom's even saying we might have to cancel AOL and Netflix for a while since she doesn't want them to take any more money from our checking account until this is fixed and most of our credit cards are maxed out. I don't really mind if we have to cancel Netflix for a few months (as long as I can finish RahXephon before we do), but I really hope we can somehow keep AOL. I need my Internet!

Game 2 starts tonight at 7:00.

Problem? So do my usual Sunday shows: Charmed, Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy.

This normally wouldn't be a problem, because I would just do what I usually do when there's a game on the same night as one of my shows. I would go ahead and watch my shows (unless it's a sitcom, which usually shows a lot of repeats), flipping to the game during commericials and occasionally the show itself to check out the score.

However, this is the first time since I started watching during the NLDS that the game conflicts with not just one or even two, but three of my shows. If I decide to flip, I'm going to miss most of the game! Plus, this is the World Series; it's a very important game and I really do want to watch it.

So what should I do?

I guess maybe I could miss one of the shows and hope that I'll be able to catch a repeat later so that I'll get to see a little bit more of the game, but then I have to decide which one to skip. My least favorite out of the three is probably Charmed, but that also happens to be my mom's favorite and she'll probably want to watch it. Also, that means I would only get to see the beginning innings, which usually aren't the most exciting. Things usually don't get interesting until around the fifth inning.

Desperate Housewives? I don't really like missing that, because if you do, you might miss clues as to what happens later on in the season. I know I missed a couple last season and I already missed the season premiere due to Rita, so I don't want to repeat that mistake.

As for Grey's Anatomy, that's probably my best bet for the skipped show as it'll allow me to watch the later innings, but I don't know... It's really becoming one of my favorites. Besides, I think Derek is supposed to be choosing between Meredith and Addison tonight.

*sigh*

Must ponder this.

In other sports news, I just finished watching the ladies' short and long programs at Skate America. I remember seeing Alissa Cziesny, the silver medalist, skate last weekend at the Campbell's competition, but I didn't realize until today when she skated really well in the free skate that she's actually a very beautiful skater with top-notch spins and a gorgeous style. If she can keep her jumps consistent, she might give Kimmie Meissner a run for the third spot on the Olympic team.

Of course, that is if Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen are even healthy enough to compete by then. Both were scheduled to compete at Skate America, and both withdrew because of hip injuries. Not good.

Next weekend will be the pairs', but I really wish I had cable so I could watch the dance and men's competition over on ESPN. They talked a little about the men's short programs after the ladies' finished and it sounds like it's going to be an awesome competition. Not to mention, France's Brian Joubert is skating. *pouts* I wanna see it...

Astros squeaked out another victory, 4-3, which means they now lead 2-1 in the series. Just two more wins and we'll be going to the World Series for the first time ever!

Today's game was a little nail-biting near the end. We had a two run lead at the bottom of the ninth, but the Cardinals managed to score one run and had a pretty good chance of scoring another to tie up the game. Luckily, though, that didn't happen. Whew!

We did cause another one of their players to be injured, though. (Sanders, the guy that got hurt in the last game, was replaced by So Taguchi for today's game, but he's hoping to be back tomorrow.) Lane was on first when Ausmus (I think) got a base hit by hitting into the far right field. Instead of just going to second, however, Lane decided to try for third and ended up knocking the Cardinals' third baseman Nunez right off his feet while sliding into the plate. It wasn't quite as ugly as what happened to Sanders, but he did have to be taken out of the game. I think they said he has a bruised thigh or something like that. We'll see if he'll play tomorrow.

Heh, wouldn't it be amusing if everybody on the Cardinals' starting line-up managed to get injured during the course of the series? Not that I'm hoping that anybody gets seriously hurt, but with the way things are going for them, you have to wonder...

I also got the first disc of RahXephon today from Netflix. I have to admit, after I got to see a dubbed episode while were at my uncle's house during Hurricane Rita, I wasn't too enthused about it, but it's actually really good so far. I can't wait for the next disc to come in. My favorite character so far is Haruka, I think. She's pretty cool, and I got a kick out of the fact that when she and Ayato first meet, she calls herself a "champion of justice." Her seiyuu is Hisakawa Aya, who also is Sailor Mercury's seiyuu, so that was a nice little in-joke. I also love the opening song "Hemisphere". I've been humming it all day long.

I do not like this. I do not like this at all.

Today, while I was watching my daily soaps, As the World Turns was interrupted by a news conference. They're planning a voluntary evacuation of Galveston Island starting tomorrow in case Tropical Storm Rita, which they're predicting might become a Category 3 hurricane, continues on its current path and hits Texas.

Please, no!

It hasn't even entered the Gulf of Mexico yet, so it's entirely possible that the course will change in the next five days (right now, the prediction is that it will hit Saturday morning), but I've just got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. This country does not need another big storm just a couple of weeks after Katrina. Granted, it won't be as devastating as what happened in New Orleans, especially since Galveston has solid plans in case of a hurricane and the city seems to be erring on the extreme side of caution, but if it hits Texas, it's going to be a major blow to the oil industry. Gas prices are going to be insane (which makes me suddenly so grateful that I don't drive). Not to mention that if Galveston is hit, that means Houston will most likely get some of it too. What about all the Katrina evacuees who have come here? Will they have to be evacuated yet again, just as they have begun trying to pick up the pieces of their lives?

Then, of course, I'm scared to death about the possibility losing our trailer. When Katrina hit, Mom said that she might be willing to stay behind in a Category 1 or 2 storm, but that if a hurricane got up to a Category 3, we were going up to Nacogdoches and stay with my sister and her roommate at their condo. The trailer survived Alicia, which was another Category 3 storm, but that was over twenty years ago when it was only a few years old. I don't think it could survive another storm like that, especially in the condition it's in now.

This is just terrible!  

I'm so scared...